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I'm puzzled by how "Indians" dancing to Gangnam Style in a call centre is meant to convey a need for returning more call centres to the US? Do Indian call centre workers spend too much time dancing and not enough time answering calls? Or... Like... What?

I watched the whole parade w/ someone from Philly. There were two Native American themed dances and another dance which was minstrel themed. I was told by my Philly friend that the parade regularly catches flack for racism. Something about South Philly white working class men being completely clueless in areas of sensitivity.

A dad who was racially abused and brutally battered on a tram packed with up to 200 people today told of his dismay after nobody stepped in to stop the attack.

Prakash Patel, 56, from New Moston (Manchester), was on a tram with his daughter Devyani at Trafford Bar when he suffered a tirade of racist abuse followed by a sustained vicious assault. He was punched in the face and head more than 18 times and suffered two black eyes and concussion.

Here Prakash, who has lived in Manchester for 31 years and is married to teacher Vasanti, 52, tells of his terror on the tram...

‘Nobody did anything... my daughter was the only one who helped me’

Just unbelievable, this is like something from 1930s Germany, and only a couple of national newspapers even picked up the story. Ugh.

It's the bystander effect. Last year a woman in my town ran to her neighbor's house for help because her husband was trying to kill her. The neighbor let her in, then the husband broke down the door and started shooting at the wife AND the neighbor. Since then, people around here won't even open a door for someone claiming to need help. Like Helen said, it's mostly for fear that getting involved will get you targeted, hurt, or killed.

It's worse in big cities too. People are just shit scared of each other in general and do not want involvement with unknown quantities for obvious reasons. You make eye contact, people freak. It's very tiring and sad and why I generally am not a fan of the big English cities. I always get the feeling people will just step over you if you died in the street in general. Doesn't mean someone shouldn't have called the police in the scenario Pete posted about, but still, these days who is prepared to wade directly into a situation where they're outnumbered, where they have no ability to defend themselves against that level of brutality or that is likely to get them stabbed or beaten half to or to actual death? Too many stabbings and people being killed while trying to help someone or defend themselves for that to be big in people's minds these days.

Oh, btw, when some teen chavscum threw an object at me from a moving car a few years back which hit me in the head knocking me to the ground I ran to the nearest person - a guy standing outside his house - for help and he basically just sneered in disgust and turned his back on me. So I had to run a quarter mile to my nearest relative's house to call the police. This was in a small town, a very nice usually 'safe' area, the attackers had disappeared over the horizon and I'm a small, very unintimidating lone female who'd just been assaulted. Even when there's no threat, plenty of people are just total shits anyway. Esoecially tracksuited wankers with earrings. Hah.

The "big city/small town" thing doesn't even come into it for me. Most of the racist abuse my boyfriend's received has been outside of big cities - some of it incredibly menacing and accompanied with the threat of violence at the hands of the community rather than of individuals. I also spent my teen years in an English town by the borders where myself and my family were "othered" for a few reasons, and while we had friends in the town, they usually weren't going out of their way to stop thugs breaking our windows. Relatively few of us stood up for the one Pakistani student at our school when she was bullied, too. Part of it is fear, and for that I can't blame people, but I also think a large part of it is that people are largely unfeeling monsters with more prejudices than they vocalise.

Abigail Fisher is suing to repeal affirmative action, based on the suggestion that people of color with lower scores than her were accepted to the college of her choice. (spoiler: so were white people who scored lower)

^I've been following her crusade for a while now. Her case is likely to succeed, as the oral arguments have been heard and it is clear from listening to them that there just aren't the votes among the liberals (Kagan had to recuse) to prevent the court from banning all race-based considerations in admitting applicants to public universities. Hopefully there is some miracle and Roberts or someone else (possibly Thomas? but unlikely) has a moment of clarity, but it is not looking good.

I work with a group of grad students trying to work on how to promote diversity among PhD students and faculty...and some of the things I have come up against, overheard, had said straight to my face - it is astonishing how much racism there is both at the individual level and embedded in our institutions. And these are the most educated, ostensibly "liberal" bunch. I've always learned about it and believed it was probably the case, but to stare it in the face and see its gears turning up close...it's pretty shocking and it's hard not to feel demoralized.

For a number of reasons, it is already (for all intents and purposes) illegal to work directly on racial/ethnic disparities in education in the public school system in California w/r/t recruitment and admissions policies. Now it will just get worse. This is a really, really bad thing that the supreme court is about to do. Prepare for our glorious "post-racial" nation to take about 10 steps backwards.

There is a pervasive myth among educators that diversity necessitates a quality trade off. That to bring in more students of color is to degrade the quality of our scholarship. (Some think we should still diversify our student bodies and faculty anyway, so this kind of racism has infected even apparently level-headed liberals and people who are supposed to be our allies). This is such a pernicious lie, especially when you consider that the majority of academic disciplines have been largely been the study of white people by white people...white people's literature, their "cultures," their psychologies, their scientific methods...it's all very FUBU in the whitest way possible — the truth is that we need a diversity of perspectives, a diversity of assumptions, ideologies, methods, really a larger diversity of mistakes and solutions to those mistakes...the sad irony is that truly advancing the quality of scholarship in whatever discipline actually depends on addressing this fundamental flaw. It is very hard to figure out how to get people to see that.

I could say much more, but I'll just end it here: fuck that white supremacist abigail fisher right to hell.

I am part of a research team in my university looking at what factors enable indigenous and minority students to be successful at university. Most of us were really shocked at some of the stories we were told by these students in terms of the racism they face from other students, from teachers, from the university structure and outside of the university as well. A large segment of the racism comes from faculties that are highly competitive and have a targeted admission process to bring more minority and indigenous students into these programs. It astonishes me how many young white people training to be lawyers, doctors and teachers (among others) have horribly conservative and racist attitudes towards people, just like this Abigail Fisher and her supporters. Frightening stuff when you think how much influence they are going to have in their professional roles in areas where indigenous and minority people experience real disadvantage.

Dawkins, in a recent rant on Twitter, admitted that he had not ever read the Quran, but was sufficiently expert in the topic to denounce Islam as the main culprit of all the world’s evil: “Haven’t read Koran so couldn’t quote chapter and verse like I can for Bible. But [I] often say Islam [is the] greatest force for evil today.” How’s that for a scientific dose of proof that God does not exist?

A few days later, on March 25, there was this: “Of course you can have an opinion about Islam without having read the Qur’an. You don’t have to read “Mein Kampf” to have an opinion about Nazism.”

The rest of the article documents the absolute best of the bat-shit racist meltdowns.

To the man that waited on me at the Starbucks down on Main, I hope you understand
When I put on that t-shirt, the only thing I meant to say is I’m a Skynyrd fan
The red flag on my chest somehow is like the elephant in the corner of the south
And I just walked him right in the room
Just a proud rebel son with an ‘ol can of worms
Lookin’ like I got a lot to learn but from my point of view

I’m just a white man comin’ to you from the southland
Tryin’ to understand what it’s like not to be
I’m proud of where I’m from but not everything we’ve done
And it ain’t like you and me can re-write history
Our generation didn’t start this nation
We’re still pickin’ up the pieces, walkin’ on eggshells, fightin’ over yesterday
And caught between southern pride and southern blame

They called it Reconstruction, fixed the buildings, dried some tears
We’re still siftin’ through the rubble after a hundred-fifty years
I try to put myself in your shoes and that’s a good place to begin
But it ain’t like I can walk a mile in someone else’s skin

‘Cause I’m a white man livin’ in the southland
Just like you I’m more than what you see
I’m proud of where I’m from but not everything we’ve done
And it ain’t like you and me can re-write history
Our generation didn’t start this nation
And we’re still paying for mistakes
That a bunch of folks made long before we came
And caught between southern pride and southern blame

Dear Mr. White Man, I wish you understood
What the world is really like when you’re livin’ in the hood
Just because my pants are saggin’ doesn’t mean I’m up to no good
You should try to get to know me, I really wish you would
Now my chains are gold but I’m still misunderstood
I wasn’t there when Sherman’s March turned the south into firewood
I want you to get paid but be a slave I never could
Feel like a new fangled Django, dodgin’ invisible white hoods
So when I see that white cowboy hat, I’m thinkin’ it’s not all good
I guess we’re both guilty of judgin’ the cover not the book
I’d love to buy you a beer, conversate and clear the air
But I see that red flag and I think you wish I wasn’t here

I’m just a white man
(If you don’t judge my do-rag)
Comin’ to you from the southland
(I won’t judge your red flag)
Tryin’ to understand what it’s like not to be

I’m proud of where I’m from
(If you don’t judge my gold chains)
But not everything we’ve done
(I’ll forget the iron chains)
it ain’t like you and me can re-write history
(Can’t re-write history baby)

Oh, Dixieland
(The relationship between the Mason-Dixon needs some fixin’)
I hope you understand what this is all about
(Quite frankly I’m a black Yankee but I’ve been thinkin’ about this lately)
I’m a son of the new south
(The past is the past, you feel me)
And I just want to make things right
(Let bygones be bygones)
Where all that’s left is southern pride
(RIP Robert E. Lee but I’ve gotta thank Abraham Lincoln for freeing me, know what I mean)
It’s real, it’s real
It’s truth